• Please Remember: Members are only permitted to share their own experiences. Members are not qualified to give medical advice. Additionally, everyone manages their health differently. Please be respectful of other people's opinions about their own diabetes management.
  • We seem to be having technical difficulties with new user accounts. If you are trying to register please check your Spam or Junk folder for your confirmation email. If you still haven't received a confirmation email, please reach out to our support inbox: support.forum@diabetes.org.uk

Confused

Status
This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.

2C2H

New Member
Relationship to Diabetes
At risk of diabetes
Fasting blood sugar 4.8 mol/l
Pre meal 5.2 mol/l
Post meal 2.5hours later 3.4 mol/l

Should I worry?

I've had this happen several days in a row
 
Hi @2C2H or should we call you acetylene?

I would not be worrying about it but I would be tracking my blood glucose because regularly dropping into the threes and is not something you would expect in somebody "at risk of" diabetes and might indicate something odd is going on. Are you on any medication?
 
I started tracking blood glucose whilst waiting results of blood tests.

My blood seems to drop to 3.6/3.7 several times a day even after eating supposedly higher sugar (raisin wheats) for breakfast, or having 40gr white chocolate.

Not on medication that affects blood sugar
 
Fasting blood sugar 4.8 mol/l
Pre meal 5.2 mol/l
Post meal 2.5hours later 3.4 mol/l

Should I worry?

I've had this happen several days in a row
If I were you I'd want to talk with my doc about it but I wouldn't panic.

"Normal" people routinely spend time below 4.0 mmol/l. See the results from a well known study here: https://academic.oup.com/view-large/204688211

In that study, "normal" people on average spent 1.1% of their time below 70 mg/dl = 3.9 mmol/l. So about 15 min per day on average. But 25% of people spent at least 2.9% of their time below 3.9 mmol/l, so 40 min+ per day.

If you're not on medications carrying a risk of hypos, there's generally nothing wrong with spending time in the 3's.
 
It sounds like you might have a touch of Reactive Hypoglycaemia. This is where your insulin response is a bit too much and sometimes too late. It can happen more often when you have high carb food, which pushes your BG levels up fast and then your pancreas gets a message to release some insulin but it produces too much too late, so levels shoot up high and then come plummeting back down. This can be a precursor to a full diabetes diagnosis I believe. I have a personal theory that this may be due to fatty deposits in and around the pancreas and liver causing them not to communicate effectively to balance your BG and results in this mistiming issue.... as oppose to the insulin resistance which is more commonly associated with fat storage over the whole body or can be a combination of both. Can I ask if you are carrying surplus weight around your upper waist/lower rib cage or find it quite difficult to bend down because you feel rigid in that area?... ie your rib cage doesn't want to flex.

The general advice with Reactive Glycaemia is to eat small low carb meals regularly and avoid high carb and/or high Glycaemic Index foods
 
I wondered if it was what you wrote.

No excess weight. bmi on low end of healthy. Fairly flexible and physically active. But suffer alot from having very little energy, feeling tired (although shift work might account for tiredness), constantly crave sweet foods
 
If I were you I would apply to Abbott Laboratories for a free trial 2 week of their Freestyle Libre 2 system which would give you an invaluable insight into what your BG levels are doing between finger pricks. If you are spiking up really high and then coming down, that will be exhausting and trigger cravings, but because the highs and lows can cancel themselves out, you sometimes end up with an HbA1c not showing that you are diabetic.
You are supposed to be "diabetic" in order to qualify for the free trial I believe, but I think being "at risk" enables you to comfortably stretch the truth a little for the benefit of your health and understanding what is going on. I would in your situation.
 
Status
This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
Back
Top